Uniontown doctor found guilty of harassment
A Uniontown Hospital doctor recently was found guilty of harassing another physician after an apparent argument over a patient at the hospital. Dr. Neeraj M. Kaushik, 32, of 10272 Rinaman Road, Wexford, was ordered by District Justice Mark Blair to pay a $25 fine plus $92 in court costs and a $1.50 administrative charge. Kaushik opted to pay in $25 installments, according to court documents.
He was found guilty of harassing Uniontown Hospital Dr. Corby Freitag last May 4.
According to the criminal complaint filed in Blair’s office by city police detective Phillip W. Jones, Freitag told police that he was sitting at his desk, writing orders on a patient, when Kaushik struck him three times in the back of the head.
“He hit me and told me I was a terrible physician,” Freitag said in his police statement. “He started using a large amount of profanity, and I told him that we needed to discuss this in a different environment and asked if he would go into another room so we could discuss this.”
According to Freitag, Kaushik then told him that the patients in the emergency department needed to know how “terrible a physician” Freitag was, again using profanity.
“I informed him I wasn’t going to talk to him if he was going to be in this manner; plus, he had just assaulted me,” Freitag said.
The incident reportedly erupted after Freitag had treated a patient in the emergency room for a heart problem around 7:30 a.m. Freitag said Kaushik was covering for another doctor who was the patient’s family physician.
He told police that Kaushik wanted to transfer the patient to a Pittsburgh hospital for treatment, but the man’s wife didn’t want him to be transferred. According to the statement, Kaushik took over the patient’s care and was transferring him to another facility when the wife pulled Freitag aside and told him again that she didn’t want her husband transferred to Pittsburgh because she didn’t have a way to get back and forth.
Freitag said he reviewed the patient’s EKG results and from a medical standpoint felt that he was showing improvement.
“The wife then asked me why the other doctor said her husband had to go to Pittsburgh, and I informed her I did not know, and she said that she did not want him going to Pittsburgh,” said Freitag. “At that point, a nurse got Dr. Kaushik on the phone and the wife and Dr. Kaushik spoke.
“I was not involved in further conversation,” Freitag added. “The patient was then transferred to the intensive care unit.”
Freitag said Kaushik struck him later in the day, around 12:30 p.m. Two nurses witnessed the incident, he said, and another doctor was nearby.